Having made the entirely sensible decision to buck up his rather run-of-the-mill Americana with a sassy new band and a shot of brass, Denver songwriter Rateliff finds his move validated by a release on venerable label Stax. If his fourth album doesn’t quite live up to that pedigree, its rootsy take on soul – swigging deep from the spirit of Van Morrison and the E Street Band and ending up in a warm O-Dexys-Where-Art-Thou fug – is rambunctiously satisfying, powered by knee-slappingly solid songwriting on the likes of the sweetly swinging Howling at Nothing, and, as in SOB’s declaration of “If I can’t get clean, I’m gonna drink my life away”, real hollering heart.
